Examiner RL reporter Chris Roberts puts the questions to the Giants chief

After suffering five successive Super League defeats and slipping to fifth in the table, do you feel the break for the weekend internationals has come at the right time?

Hopefully it’ll prove that way, because we’ve certainly got an awful lot to think about!

Obviously, you’d rather go into a break off a win, but that’s not the case and we’ve a couple of weeks to dwell on what’s been going on before we host London Broncos a week on Sunday.

Having said that, I’m sure the players will benefit from what’s going to be their first break of the year. Our run to the semi-final of the Challenge Cup next month has seen to that.

It’s their first chance to freshen themselves up and get over the many niggles players are carrying by this stage of the season.

It also gives us a bit more time to look at the number of things that need fixing up.

After making such an excellent start to the season, we’re all bitterly disappointed at the way things have gone over the past month and we’re also desperate to re-discover our best form again as quickly as possible.

We know when we return there won’t be a 100% improvement, but we do feel we’re capable of making big improvements in a relatively short space of time.

How tough was Monday’s defeat to Hull KR to take?

Very, particularly given the nature of it.

After conceding that early try, I was really encouraged with the way we were starting to play.

We obviously led 12-6 midway through the opening half and were on top. We were looking a decent team.

But after Eorl Crabtree had scored our second try, we were like the person who wants to get rich quick. It was as if we thought we had to score every time we had the ball.

We didn’t think about building any momentum or pressure at all.

Instead, when we got to 12-6 and were in control, we elected to go for a try down the short side and for yardage, rather than kick the ball, go for the chase and put Hull KR under more pressure.

At that stage, they were struggling. They had hands on hips and were getting back into position slowly.

We let them off the hook and we ended up killing ourselves.

How frustrating was it to see so much squandered possession, particularly in such promising positions?

We just didn’t handle their rush defence as well as we could have done.

Besides that, our decision-making is poor and that’s proving a big problem as well.

When we show control and discipline we look like a good footy team, but we’re only doing that in patches at the moment.

As long as we keep making silly errors, give away cheap penalties and fail to build any momentum, we’ll continue to put ourselves under pressure.

And with the way we’re defending right now, that’s simply asking for trouble.

Earlier in the year, when we were under pressure, our defence was holding firm. We had conceded fewer points than any other club in the competition after the opening 10 rounds.

Not any more.